I’ve been enjoying a wonderful collaboration with remarkable composer Scott Wollschleger the past several years. We worked together on a new violin piece, Secret Machine No. 7, workshopping fragments of it every few months until Scott assembled the ideas into a form. The hidden machine could be industrial or biological or otherworldly, a landscape, a metamorphosis of energy, a state of mind.

I premiered the piece last year and we recorded it in January at Oktaven Studio.

It is on Scott’s newly-released Between Breath (New Focus Recordings), an album filled with marvelous performances of Scott’s recent music.

Jeremy Shatan wrote on An Earful:

“Wollschleger is one of my favorites and one of the best American composers of recent years…Secret Machine No. 7, an astonishing solo violin piece that uses tones (a detuned G string) and techniques (a metal mute) to wrest new expression from the instrument. Miranda Cuckson dashes it off with fiery grace, engaging equally with its dance rhythms and moments of echoing loneliness.”

Our video of the piece (from the recording session) is featured in The Strad magazine. It’s an honor to be featured in this publication that I, like many string players, grew up reading.

The album release concert at Roulette on June 27, with all NY premieres, was a great joy and there was a wonderful audience.  I played Secret Machine No. 7 and also Lost Anthems for viola and piano, with pianist Karl Larson. Enjoy the livestream video!